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“Degrassi: Now or Never” recap: Week 1

Alrighty, peeps! First week of Degrassi: Now or Never down, and boy, if I thought I was short on summer shows before, I’m certainly not anymore.

Let’s start with Princess Fiona, who is standing around in her bedroom, modeling her new swimsuit for herself. She’s looking forward to a spring break vacation complete with long walks on the beach, virgin strawberry daiquiris, and a fling with some girl named Tara or Tisha who will “let her have it” before they “stroll down to a secluded cove for their first kiss.” Wait, what?

Sadly, though, Fiona’s plans are cancelled when a volcano erupts and grounds all flights in and out of the Caribbean. At a loss for how else to spend her spring break, Holly J manages to rope Fiona into joining her for an art class.

They walk in, and Fiona’s gaze immediately lights upon one of the girls in the class, who, as it turns out, is actually the model for the week. Fiona laments to Holly J that she doesn’t know how to tell if this other girl is gay, to which Holly J responds, “I’m sure you have some sort of lesbian-dar thing.” Yep, but we tend to call it gaydar.

Fiona approaches the other girl, Charlie, as she’s getting on her scooter after the class and strikes up a conversation. Charlie, it turns out, is sweet and self-depreciating and could definitely make me ship this pairing.

In her excitement over having Charlie’s attention, Fiona lies about owning multiple scooters. “Another scoot fanatic,” Charlie replies. “We should go riding together sometime!”

Apparently, though, there’s no way Fiona can buy and learn to ride a scooter in time for her scooter-ing date with Charlie. Holly J reasons that the object in question is baby blue — how hard can it be? — which, in my opinion, is pretty flawless logic, but unfortunately for Fiona there are some things called learner’s permits and licenses.

So before class the next day, she comes clean to Charlie about having lied to impress her. “I’m lesbian,” Fiona explains. “It’s a recent revelation, in case you haven’t noticed. Ever since I came out, I haven’t hung out with any non-straight type girls. Women. People like us,” she trails off before quickly amending that last statement with “if you are.”

Charlie confirms that she is gay and acknowledges that “everyone’s got to start somewhere.” Lesbian learner’s permit? Also, thank you, Holly J, for existing. I might have died of second-hand embarrassment during this scene if you hadn’t been there with me.

Seeing Fiona interact with Holly J, though, Charlie is confused and asks if Fiona has a girlfriend, to which Fiona fumblingly responds that Holly J is only her girlfriend in the platonic, non-lesbian sense. Really, Fiona? Didn’t we go over this last season? You’ve had a couple months to come up with another way to refer to your platonic female friends, and you still go with that? Well OK then.

“So what’s it like?” Fiona asks, pointing at Charlie’s scooter, and Charlie voices her surprise that Fiona’s never ridden one. Fiona admits that, while scooters look cute, they go really fast, and anyway, aren’t they scary?

Charlie tells Fiona she’ll never know unless she tries, and when Fiona pushes back whether Charlie gives lots of girls rides on her scooter, she retorts, “only special ones.” A whole conversation of scooter jokes so I don’t have to. Thanks, Degrassi!

Later, Fiona explains to Holly J that going for a ride with Charlie made her “feel free.” She has decided to get her license and pick up a scooter the next day, not to mention she invited Charlie over for a sketching (sketchy?) date.

Charlie comes over and immediately rejects Fiona’s idea of drawing bananas, informing her they’ll be modeling for each other. Or, as she puts it, “Where do you want me?”

When it comes to Fiona’s turn, she whips out the bathing suit she’d bought for spring break. “So now it’s your turn to sketch,” she tells Charlie. “Where do you want me?” Charlie steers her toward the wall, but Fiona freaks out mid-kiss and requests they stick to the sketching.

When they get a chance to talk the next day, Fiona explains that, while she likes Charlie, it’s all so new to her still. “Friends first, benefits maybe later!” Charlie offers. “Makes sense.” Um, does it? Well then let’s hope both the friendship and the benefits make a return at some point this summer.

Until then, Charlie assures us they’ll “only go fast on the street,” and Fiona sighs to Holly J that the brakes on her crush aren’t as good as the ones on the scooter.

And that was the “Spring Fever” episode!

Other goings on in the life of Fiona Celestine Arabella Coyne this week included throwing a surprise party at her apartment for Anya’s 18th birthday, at which some guy named Connor hit on Fiona and then stole her underwear. I had been planning on saying that this could end up being an annoyance for Fiona, but then he went and stole other girls’ underwear in the next episode (this is really a plotline?), so now I’m thinking it will come back to haunt him instead.

Also at the party: Anya — having been rejected both by her doctor crush and from the only university to which she applied — slept with a guy named Owen, whom Fiona and Holly J (and even Anya, up until this episode) think is disgusting.

The next day, Fiona and Holly J freak out about Owen’s internet bragging of his anonymous one-night stand at the party, saying that whoever the girl is, she must have had the world’s lowest self-esteem and been desperate and self-hating. When Anya comes clean to them about what happened, they’re speechless. Guess we know what words they’ll be eating.

On to Adam (and props to the Torres brothers for bookending the new opening credits)!

Maybe I just watch too much Glee, but I keep finding myself impressed with the plot continuity on Degrassi. Or maybe I was just excited that Fiona showed up in all four episodes and Adam in half of them.

Either way, when Drew mentioned that he was dating Bianca, he prompted his mother to question if this was the same girl “who wouldn’t dance with your brother in ballroom class,” which prompted me to flail about in shock at the plot and character continuity.

Honestly, that was the most exciting moment this week involving Adam. He had two brief, brotherly scenes with Drew, one in which he informed Drew that, yes, it is actually possible to be more grounded, and one in which he invited Drew to join him playing video games.

Drew, meanwhile, had a lead plotline in which Anson, an ex of Bianca’s, came back into her life, tried to rape her, attacked Drew when he pulled him off Bianca, and then was accidentally killed by Bianca when she stepped in to defend Drew.

When the police start investigating, Bianca convinces Drew that, because she has a record, they can’t turn themselves in and, if they just lay low, it’ll all blow over. Unfortunately for them, a fellow gang member of Anson has a piece of evidence tying them to the scene. Drew tells this guy, Vince, that they’ll do whatever it takes to appease him, which turns out to be joining the gang and shooting someone for them. Instead, Drew turns himself in and takes the blame for Anson’s murder.

In a subsequent episode, a character named Dave — whose father is the cop to whom Drew turned himself in — asks Adam how his brother is doing. Adam explains that, while Drew is grounded for life, their mother has found a lawyer for him, and anyway, it was self-defense. Dave assures Adam that Drew has done all the right things.

Meanwhile, Drew starts having PTSD-like symptoms and is alternately defending Bianca to his mother and blaming her for everything that happened. He decides to break up with her, but his problems with the gang aren’t over, as this week’s episodes ended with some gang members finding him and beating him up.

Adam also showed up briefly in relation to the Clare/Eli storyline. Eli is healing from his car crash and has been put on anti-anxiety meds that preventing him from feeling much of anything. Clare is struggling to cope with the way Eli is ignoring her, so Adam assures her that their breakup is the best thing that could have happened for both of them.

Anyway, nothing like your brother confessing to a murder (that he didn’t commit) and then being beat up by a gang to show your mother that being trans is totally not a big deal. At least, until someone else unnecessarily makes it a big deal. That storyline and more will be front and center next week, so check back then for recaps on those!

Degrassi: Now or Never airs Monday through Thursday on TeenNick. You can watch full episodes at TeenNick.com.

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